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Mount Everest/Transcript
Transcript Tim stands on a mountain. TIM: I am king of the mountain! Moby pushes Tim and Tim falls. TIM: Oof! Tim reads from a typed letter. TIM: Dear Tim and Moby, what's the tallest mountain in the world? From, Kaz. That would be…Mount Everest. Moby plants a sign that reads: Mount Everest TIM: Except, this isn't it. Everest is located in Nepal, near its border with Tibet in the Himalayan mountain range. A map shows the Himalayan mountain range in Nepal, on the border of Tibet. TIM: At 8,8848 meters above sea level, it's the tallest mountain in the world. The mountain is actually pyramid-shaped, with three faces covered in glaciers. An image shows Mount Everest with its height marked. MOBY: Beep? TIM: A glacier is basically a frozen river of ice. Melting ice from the glaciers of Everest and the rest of the Himalayas provides most of the fresh water of India, China and South Asia. An image shows melting ice creating runoff and rivers in the Himalayan mountain range. TIM: Along with the rest of the Himalayas, Mount Everest began to form over 30 million years ago, when the Indian continental plate collided with the Eurasian continental plate. An animation shows the continental plates colliding. MOBY: Beep? TIM: See, the surface, or crust of the earth is broken up into a dozen major and many minor plates floating on the liquid mantle. When the plates move, continents shift along with them, sometimes colliding. Dotted lines on a world map shows the earth's surface divided into plates as Tim describes. TIM: The collision between India and Eurasia created a folded mountain range at the border of the two tectonic plates. The plates are pushing together to this day, which is why Everest is still growing. Every year, it grows another three to five millimeters. That may not sound like much, but it adds up over millions of years. An animation shows Mount Everest growing slowly. MOBY: Beep. TIM: You want to climb Everest? Well. MOBY: Beep. TIM: No, not always. Until the twentieth century, no one climbed Everest. It was considered sacred to the Sherpa who lived near it, so they never tried to climb it. An image shows a Sherpa. MOBY: Beep? TIM: Oh, the Sherpa are an ethnic group who have lived in the Himalayas for centuries. Many of them are skilled mountain climbers. Early in the twentieth century, some Sherpa agreed to guide expeditions led by European explorers up the mountain. High winds, extremely cold temperatures, avalanches, and other hazards prevented those early efforts from succeeding. An animation shows a Sherpa mountain climber leading an expedition. TIM: The air near the top of Everest has barely any oxygen at all. An animation shows an explorer gasping for breath on the mountain. TIM: Many of those who attempted to climb Everest died doing it. In 1953, Edmund Hillary of New Zealand and Tenzing Norgay, a Sherpa, became the first people to make it to the top, or summit. They used oxygen tanks for the last leg of the climb. An image shows Hillary and Norgay on the mountain. They have breathing tubes over their mouths. TIM: These days, hundreds of people attempt to climb Everest every year. As of 2007, around 3,700 people had reached the top, some more than once, and more than 200 have died trying. MOBY: Beep. Moby is holding mountain climbing gear. TIM: So yeah? You think we should give it a shot? Moby nods his head "yes". TIM: Um, you go without me. I have... homework. Category:BrainPOP Transcripts